Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

Cep provides background on the events of the book. Seventeen years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, writer Harper Lee returned to Alexander City, Alabama, to gather material on the trial of Robert Burns, who was accused of killing Reverend Willie Maxwell at the funeral of Shirley Ellington, Burns’s niece who was presumed to be just one of several victims Maxwell murdered. Burns’s lawyer was Tom Radney, also the longtime lawyer of Willie Maxwell. The sensational circumstances of the case notwithstanding, Harper Lee never completed or published her proposed book on the trial. Cep questions why Lee never finished her book on these events despite having such good source material.

Willie Maxwell was born to a poor family in Alabama in 1926. He came from a family of black sharecroppers and had little education, and there is virtually no mention of him in the historical record. By 18, Willie was enlisted in the US Army and assigned to an engineering aviation battalion. Willie served until 1947, then he returned home. By then, Willie was known for his charm and politeness. He got a job at Russell Manufacturing, a textile company, and married Mary Lou Edwards in 1949.